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Why Should I Cry? (Ship of Nails, Part 7)
“It’s you.” Thor looks enervated, a shadow of himself, dark bruises around his eyes from lack of sleep, hands trembling, his system ravaged by the alternating storms of too much liquor and too fast withdrawal from liquor. For all that, though, he doesn’t look surprised to see Loki. He doesn’t even look surprised to see Loki in his Jotun form.
“Yes,” Loki says quietly. “Hello, Brother.”
Behind him, Valkyrie quietly hustles Barnes outside. This is a moment for two, only.
“Are you alive?” Thor sits where he is, unwilling or unable to rise.
“I’m…honestly not sure,” Loki says, reaching up to touch the pale locks of hair braided into his own. “I don’t think I am, technically, but…the lines between life and death aren’t as solid as we once thought, and I've crossed them so many times it's hard to know what side I've ended up on.”
There’s a long pause. There's a blankness in Thor's eyes he doesn't like: nothing of pleading or reproach, nothing playful or angry. Loki's not sure he even comprehends what he's just said. It's like he's not there, and that chills the younger god like no Jotunheim winter ever could. Was anyone here to comfort Thor when their best efforts failed, and Thanos declared victory with his own death? Did any of these Avengers and Revengers, the refugees of the Aesir, the people of Earth who adored him--did any of them even know him well enough to offer solace, had they tried?
Funny, he thought of his responsibility as a god often enough, but it took a crisis for Loki to consider his duty as a brother.
One wary step closer to Thor, and Loki adds: “I wasn’t trying to trick you this time. It just happened. I tried to reach out to you-"
“I know. I dreamed it.” Tears are welling up in Thor’s eyes, and Loki freezes like a deer in headlights. "I didn't believe you were real."
It’s too much. He wants to rush to Thor's side and embrace him, wants to run out of the cluttered house and never return, wants…wants this to be different. Simpler. Less painful.
“Please don’t cry any longer,” he all but whispers, red eyes locked on blue. “I’m here now. I’m here.”
The next thing he knows, they’re locked together in a shaky embrace, like they used to when they were children. Like how Thor would hold Loki in homemade blanket-and-pillow forts during storms when they were children, except this time Loki is the one holding Thor, and the house, the whole world, around them feels so much more frail than a blanket fort ever did. Thor is crying, and the tears freeze on Loki’s skin, painting him with frost, and he has no idea what to say.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, whispers the elder brother, over and over, and Loki is horribly reminded of his own dying, gasped-out apologies on Svartalfheim. And why should he not be? Thor, too, is impaled through the heart, bleeding out. No silver tongue can heal this wound.
They are, both of them, profoundly damaged. Lost, afraid, burdened. They have over a thousand years of air to clear between the two of them, and Loki knows now that there is potential for a greater understanding, but there is no opportunity here to put the work in. The brothers have no time, an imminent fight to face for the survival of their people. This is a second chance for them (or a third, or a tenth), but neither of them can conjure up the words to make it mean what it ought to mean.
It’s almost too cruel, and yet the chance to embrace his own world's Thor once more, even in futility, is a grace Loki never thought to receive.
Outside, freezing rain pours down in a wild torrent, as if someone had upended a bottomless bucket over the town. Bucky and Brunnhilde run for shelter.
“It’s gonna keep on like this for a while, I think,” she tells him as they stand in the doorway of a fisherman’s shack, shivering.
“There’s nothing worse than a cold rain,” he says, flicking water out of his finger joints like a cat that's walked through wet grass.
But Valkyrie shakes her head. "I can think of a lot of worse things."
((Musical Inspiration))
“Yes,” Loki says quietly. “Hello, Brother.”
Behind him, Valkyrie quietly hustles Barnes outside. This is a moment for two, only.
“Are you alive?” Thor sits where he is, unwilling or unable to rise.
“I’m…honestly not sure,” Loki says, reaching up to touch the pale locks of hair braided into his own. “I don’t think I am, technically, but…the lines between life and death aren’t as solid as we once thought, and I've crossed them so many times it's hard to know what side I've ended up on.”
There’s a long pause. There's a blankness in Thor's eyes he doesn't like: nothing of pleading or reproach, nothing playful or angry. Loki's not sure he even comprehends what he's just said. It's like he's not there, and that chills the younger god like no Jotunheim winter ever could. Was anyone here to comfort Thor when their best efforts failed, and Thanos declared victory with his own death? Did any of these Avengers and Revengers, the refugees of the Aesir, the people of Earth who adored him--did any of them even know him well enough to offer solace, had they tried?
Funny, he thought of his responsibility as a god often enough, but it took a crisis for Loki to consider his duty as a brother.
One wary step closer to Thor, and Loki adds: “I wasn’t trying to trick you this time. It just happened. I tried to reach out to you-"
“I know. I dreamed it.” Tears are welling up in Thor’s eyes, and Loki freezes like a deer in headlights. "I didn't believe you were real."
It’s too much. He wants to rush to Thor's side and embrace him, wants to run out of the cluttered house and never return, wants…wants this to be different. Simpler. Less painful.
“Please don’t cry any longer,” he all but whispers, red eyes locked on blue. “I’m here now. I’m here.”
The next thing he knows, they’re locked together in a shaky embrace, like they used to when they were children. Like how Thor would hold Loki in homemade blanket-and-pillow forts during storms when they were children, except this time Loki is the one holding Thor, and the house, the whole world, around them feels so much more frail than a blanket fort ever did. Thor is crying, and the tears freeze on Loki’s skin, painting him with frost, and he has no idea what to say.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, whispers the elder brother, over and over, and Loki is horribly reminded of his own dying, gasped-out apologies on Svartalfheim. And why should he not be? Thor, too, is impaled through the heart, bleeding out. No silver tongue can heal this wound.
They are, both of them, profoundly damaged. Lost, afraid, burdened. They have over a thousand years of air to clear between the two of them, and Loki knows now that there is potential for a greater understanding, but there is no opportunity here to put the work in. The brothers have no time, an imminent fight to face for the survival of their people. This is a second chance for them (or a third, or a tenth), but neither of them can conjure up the words to make it mean what it ought to mean.
It’s almost too cruel, and yet the chance to embrace his own world's Thor once more, even in futility, is a grace Loki never thought to receive.
Outside, freezing rain pours down in a wild torrent, as if someone had upended a bottomless bucket over the town. Bucky and Brunnhilde run for shelter.
“It’s gonna keep on like this for a while, I think,” she tells him as they stand in the doorway of a fisherman’s shack, shivering.
“There’s nothing worse than a cold rain,” he says, flicking water out of his finger joints like a cat that's walked through wet grass.
But Valkyrie shakes her head. "I can think of a lot of worse things."
((Musical Inspiration))